In an symbolic protest of the giant Belo Monte Dam, Friday morning some 300 locals dug a channel in an earthen dam that blocks a portion of the Xingu River and serves as the first step for the controversial hydroelectric project

Survival International is petitioning Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff to suspend plans to build the dam until local indigenous communities have given their free consent. Sign today before it's too late!

Conservationists and local indigenous people contend the Belo Monte project will exact a significant environmental and human toll, flooding 260 square miles of rainforest and displacing more than 20,000 people who depend on free-flowing rivers for their l

The decades-long fight over Brazilian megadam, the Belo Monte, has taken another U-turn after a judge ordered work to stop immediately since the dam would devastate vital fishing grounds for local people.

Belo Monte would be a project bigger than the Panama Canal, flooding at least 400,000 acres of rainforest, displacing 40,000 indigenous and local people--Sign the petition now, before the bulldozers move in -- it will be delivered to Brasilia!

A series of mega dams is being planned as a central part of Brazil's Accelerated Growth Programme, which aims to stimulate the country's economic growth by building a huge infrastructure of roads and dams, mainly in the Amazon region.